memory_betafandomcom-20200223-history
Talk:USS Enterprise (NCC-1701-A)
Sulu's Shipboard Officer Position (2286-89) Was just re-reading several of the DC Comics Vol. 1 issues dealing with the post-''Voyage Home'' time period, and while I've known that Hikaru Sulu held a nominal first officer's position aboard the Enterprise-A prior to taking command of the Excelsior, I came across this letter column (in issue #41) where the writer and editor laid out the official, then-Paramount-endorsed NCC-1701-A chain of command during that era: I'd entered an edit on the Enterprise-A page which reflected this (or actually, mistakenly listed Spock as "Executive Officer," rather than Sulu, but anyways...), but it was reverted; I figured I'd put this out there for discussion before making any further adjustments, as I find this a pretty interesting rank-delineation, but is there an official source (or sources) that have come out since this that retcon this 23rd Century shipboard position (First Officer vs. Executive Officer)? --The Bandsaw Vigilante (talk) 05:35, November 30, 2014 (UTC) :That listing is a little confusing. On the one hand it puts FO and SO Spock before XO Sulu, on the other hand it calls Spock a "junior grade". What does that mean? Is he a junior grade captain (I think that's the rank he holds by that time) as opposed to Kirk's senior status, or are they actually saying Spock is junior to Commander Sulu? In any case, this might be similar to how the positions of FO and XO were split up on the USS Excalibur in the Star Trek: New Frontier series. - Bell'Orso (talk) 13:36, November 30, 2014 (UTC) I reverted your edit because the link was wrong, its first officer not executive officer. Executive officer is another name for first officer.--Typhuss999 (talk) 15:00, November 30, 2014 (UTC) :Typhuss, please excuse yourself from starting edit wars on subjects where you aren't aware of the source material. :Executive officer can and has been a separate position on ships, like the Excalibur in New Frontier. it is the designated commander of the night shift who also takes over for the first officer's duties during attrition. many XOs are also the first officer though, so it's generally a non-issue for people to make the wide assumption the positions are always one and the same. it doesn't pay to assume, because sometimes the executive officer could be the nominal second officer, like Mueller -- Captain MKB ::in terms of this lettercolumn comment, i'd wonder how definitive it is because it isn't part of the story. it seems confused, and it is part of an editorial commentary and not a source itself. Furthermore, in canon and other licensing, we have a bit of confusion -- in Star Trek V, Chekov is left in command upon Kirk's departure, a commander giving orders to a captain, Scott, so assuming one person is a first officer, executive officer or second officer without a source that says so is a problem, as you could be interpreting Scotty's lack of command assignments to mean he is not holding a position? You really shouldn't assume. There's a lot of places in the wiki where our desire to "fix" causes us to blindly ignore the source data to fill in space in the sidebar with a plausible position. We need a source to name someone first officer or second officer. We can't just keep filling up the "second officer" lists with people of the third highest rank on the vessel. Beverly Crusher, Scotty, Deanna Troi, all had high ranks but were not consistently line officers viable to be named into the position of "second officer" of their ship. Each had a differing level of involvement in ship command and their own titles as staff officers. -- Captain MKB 17:14, November 30, 2014 (UTC)